Once again I write as I sit on the outskirts of Grelsh, this strange little town that has become the center of my life. I am exhausted - we have not slept since my last entry - but I am restive and wish to record the most recent events, for if anything can have meaning, the past few hours can.
When our wait in Releford's room of horrors was ended just before our nerves had reached their last frayed end, it was not by Immin's return as I had presumptively written, but by the arrival of Urik with a newcomer, one Caladar by name, a Wild Cousin and one of Ipaphan's tribe. Urik had recruited him because - news to us, in this underground lair - riots and civil unrest had broken out, with violence directed at Grelsh's non-human population. I had little doubt that this uproar had been orchestrated, and it was a grim irony that the tactic we had considered for our mission was now being used against us. This Caladar was a surly sort, and some sort of alchemist by the look of him, but he seemed willing enough to take on our mission even with limited information; given the alternative aboveground, it may have been the lesser of two evils.
As for Immin, his whereabouts are unknown. Urik seems to think he has quit Grelsh and put this whole sorry mess behind him; he may yet have gone to see Nackle with the information that our proof would be coming forthwith. We will find that out when we can consult Nackle ourselves.
With the arrival of Urik and Caladar, Apple, Muntaquim, and I bestirred ourselves, and we woke Zinna, who had been napping on Releford's "nuptial" bed. We wanted no more than to leave this place, whatever faced us down the dark corridor. Apple and I had already agreed that our quest was to find and destroy the Nil Engine, and all signs pointed to its being down this passage.
We trudged for what seemed like hours but was not quite that long before we found a strangely formed door. Zinna attempted to open it and was met with a magical trap from which she narrowly avoided injury. We found ourselves in a small room; a magical mouth in the stonework announced us as intruders over and over and over again, even after I sliced the rock with the Reaper, and a ladder led upwards to the surface. When Zinna checked, she was able to determine that we were under the rocky shore, just south of where the river meets the harbor.
The door we had entered was disguised on the room side to be all but invisible; armed with this knowledge, Zinna was able to both disarm and unlock an matching door on the other side of the room. Once open, it revealed another long corridor, apparent twin to the one we had just traversed. If this was indeed the halfway point, the next leg of our journey would take us under the harbor itself, and our bearing appeared to be towards the small fortress island that we had seen only from a distance.
Wearily, we pressed on.
Eventually, another long hike took us to what appeared to be a small suite of cells: crude affairs, with iron doors and straw matting. Over one cell was scrawled "Pasha" but its occupant was a Dog-woman, a creature of whose type I had heard but never seen. Urik and Caladar busied themselves with the prisoner, who looked to be in terrible shape; Apple stayed with them. Zinna and I made to search the rest of the chambers; we found nothing, but heard what sounded like snores coming from beyond a door at the end of a hallway. When the snores turned into the sounds of the snorers rousing themselves, I raced back to the cells to tell my comrades to leave the prisoner alone and prepare for battle.
And a battle it was to be. The door flew open to reveal several Dog-men, armed soldiers by the look of them, with some spellcasters in their number. Muntaquim called for us to fall back and fight in the confined space of the hallway, where their numbers could not overwhelm us, and Urik filled their chamber with same web he had used to trap goblins at the Andersbright Bridge, slowing them considerably. This turned the skirmish into a slow-motion bloodbath, with Dog-men attackers straining to cast spells and push polearms at the knot of us defenders in the hallway; I lost track of who went down and who stayed up. It seemed to take a long time for Caladar to enter the fray, but when he did, his alchemical weapons threw flame and death all about the scene; Apple aided in this effort, setting the web itself afire. Muntaquim and Zinna bore the brunt of the hand-to-hand fighting; I managed some blows with The Reaper, but the close quarters seemed to hinder as much as they helped.
Finally, all the Dog-men were dead (including the prisoner, I found out, but never how) and we were all still alive. As things have gone of late, that is recorded as a major victory.
Once ructions were ceased, we could resume our search. Through some hidden doors, we found the object of our quest: the room containing the Nil Engine. I immediately went to work with The Reaper. Using its Nil magic to destroy a Nil machine was a delicious transgression; even so, it took several minutes to dismember and gut the evil device. My satisfaction when I made the last cut was palpable; here was one evil artifact that DuChamp would not have!
While I had been so occupied, Zinna had found another way out, beyond the room in which the Dog-men had slept. Egress upward led to a sort of turret-room, in which ballistae were pointed toward Grelsh and toward open sea; from there, access could be made to a courtyard, and a little scouting found a path to an accessible beach and a small boat.
In order to ensure the death of the death machine and to cover our tracks as much as we could, Caladar put the last of his incendiaries into the guts of the Nil Engine and ignited them all at once. Then we hurriedly made for the boat and cast off from the island, not wishing to press our luck any further. Dawn was almost breaking as we made for the small point on the north side of the wide river mouth, our plan to sleep for a while before heading to the Blessed Bee and enlisting Cavendish's aid in making contact with Nackle.
And so here we are, huddled in the rocks, trying to catch some well-earned rest before writing the epilog to this sad and sorry journey. I am hopeful that once this political situation has arighted itself that things will return to something approaching normal. DuChamp will leave to become once more a shadow of gloom rather than an unwelcome guest; the human-only sentiment may be quelled or at least quieted; perhaps I can spend some time at Trades Meet again, making baskets before journeying to Purim to return Rorick's axe.
I have crossed a line, I know, but I did what I had to do. And now I think I have to go to sleep.
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